Just got back home after another good Thought Bubble. Great to meet up with familiar faces, as well as meeting up with new squaxx's. And bagged myself some more sketches, and picked up some good reading.

Yes, the queuing was a bit of a bind at times, and the marquees got gridlocked often, but overall I liked the change of location. Hopefully tweaks can be made to smooth things out next year.

Damnit didn't realise you where there Spikes. Would love to have caught up.

Anyway back home and rested from a super day out in Leeds, wearing my sparkly new Rok of the Reds t-shirt bought from the ever wonderful Mr Wagner. Lots of lovely booty, Cinebook stall well a truly raided, had a bit of a Shaky Kane field day too, stumbled across a book he did with the lovely (as it turns out) C.S. Baker (with whom I backward bartered to settle on a fair price which was weird!) and he through in a signed print to boot. I then picked up a couple of pieces from the ever lovely Dave Hine who told me about the Good New Bible, which I failed to track down on the day but will. Much more besides, if only one sketch dabbed.

The crown jewel however was found, by chance at Sean Phillips table. In honour of the centenary of Will Eisner's birth he's out together a full newsheet size Spirit comic. Its massive and the talent who contributed make it as neautiful to read as it is as an object. Its just magnificent and already close to the top of my treasured comic possessions. Its been produced for The Great Lakes and will be available there and then online so this a is bit of a seek preview. If you like comics at all get this - its glorious!

Of course the day was made all the more special by meeting so many lovely folks from here and wider 2000ad fandom. Hawkmumbler put up with me alot, many other lovely chats (and hugs from Pete Wells, who amazingly gets more impressive the more you get to know him!). All round smashing folks and a pleasure to see you all again and sorry to those I missed.

New Town Centre venue has its pros and cons (no pun intended) but overall I'd say was worth it. Great 2000ad panel and who knew Gerald Way was THAT popular. I've never seen queues like it!

Damnit didn't realise you where there Spikes. Would love to have caught up.

I think we missed each other at the 40th as well? But yes, will be grand to meet up at some point.

And going by online postings elsewhere, I too completely missed a good few folks that attended. I suspect we all passed each other at some point without realising, as tables filled with wondrous things, staffed by the ever-brilliant droids, captured our attention.

Well that's Thought Bubble over and done with, had a great time, bought all the comics I was after plus quite a few more. Met a lot of great people and made a lot of new friends, pity that's my weekend over already but Leeds it's been a blast and I'll be back next year

filippo

Logged

It's all right, that's in every contract.That's what they call a sanity clause.You can't fool me, there ain't no sanity clause.

The Leeds Town Hall Marquee was long, narrow - single exit, also seemed to have the most diligent bag checker so biggest queue. This was where 2000AD was, Vice Press as well.

Seemed weirdly narrower on one side - so the 2000AD/VP tables were in a very narrow alley, and pretty much made it a one way system when it got busy. With the single exit it made it much more of a chore than it could have been.

Not sure on the lack of exits, maybe lack of staff to cover it if they were being pretty full-on checking bags, using wands on people.

It seemed a bit overkill to me, unless someone has a real grudge against small press, it doesn't seem like it would make a difference whether it's an atrocity inside the marquee or the queue outside it.

By that Marquee was the town hall, which had Gerard Way as a guest - and by far the biggest queue - even on Sunday, 90 mins before it opened there was a sizable queue.

I heard some murmurings that people thought that the queue was far the hall in general and didn't bother - I certainly heard one of the redshirts telling people on the Sunday that they could go in.

Oh and apparently someone managing the queue got punched by a fan when they were given the news that they weren't going to be able to get in.

So then there was the mid sized Marquee next door to the Radisson - which was OK, similar thing with a single exit.

Millennium Square a hundred yards or so further up still had the Comixology Marquee and the Carriagehouse Theatre which was hosting panels.

This seemed a pretty good place to be, as there were a couple of pubs/bars right next to it, was also far more spacious than the other two.

The main difference between the Royal Armouries and the town centre is that it's much more spread out, I'd say it seemed busier possibly because you might have punters coming in who wouldn't know or venture as far as the RA.

It was a bit of a shame that the Vice Press gallery was so far out - closer to the RA than the festival.

I think with that space by the town hall, it could have had more going on - there was the odd workshops but it might need to just have some food stalls, amenities etc.

It's a bit of an awkward location, maybe needs more of a defined edge - and maybe do all your security checks there rather than the entrance to the marquees - it's a bit weird having the bag checks then having some cosplayer with a pretty realistic machine gun and swat gear wandering around.

On the negative side I didn't get away from the comiXology hall, but there was more than enough in there to keep me occupied.

I was lucky enough to be in a row with CFM (and Jazz) od the Psychedelic Journal, Neils 1 & 2 (McClements & Bhuna) and I finally got to meet Steven Austin! We were a line of complete Thrill power!

Spikes & Jacob-G- Did you drop by? It'd be grand to put a face to a user name.

We got to say hello to- (From memory, so please forgive me if I don't mention you) Stacey (and new Hubby) PeteW, Steve Green, Steve Sterlaccini, Mr and Mrs Molcher, Spongejosh and his lovely partner, The one and only Filippo, DDD, Eamonn, Mr J Wagner (who stormed it according to reports) Rich & Iz McAuliffe, conor & Lizzie Boyle (who I only saw in passing multiple times), Dunk, Matthew Badham, SimonB and a special mention to Hawkmother. I'm sure there are loads of other folk I've missed and can only apologise.

I was hoping to get to say Hi to Old Tankie- did you make it down in the end?

FQP did pretty well- the new venue was nice and accessible- a trip to Greggs for lunch was a rare taste of fresh air, and it was grand to see so many of the entries for this years art comp (might have three new artists in tow if they email me) as well as predicting the winner. As is usual now (for me at least) the winner for the art comp has a history with FQP. This years winner was actually involved in our very first issue and he has contributed many times since. Not going to give his name as I don't know if TMO wants to make any sort of announcement, but I gave a loud cheer upon hearing the news.

Also awesome was the news from another artist that His Verdant Majesty would be open to providing suitable sample scripts for another proto-art droid I've known for years.

I heard some unsubstantiated rumours as to the outcomes of one bag check that resulted in the police being called- if true- then we should all be glad they took place as the event could have been utterly ruined.

Nano-bolt acquitted herself admirably as a 'red-shirt' (Apparently Ian Kennedy was a total delight) and following a conversation at the table it was a pleasure to say hello to the daughter of personal hero Nigel Dobbyn!

Thought Bubble is a great gig- and I hope it continues for many years.

Had a cracking day Saturday at Thought Bubble,I know the venue wasn't to everyone's liking but I never went when it was at the armories so I have nothing to judge it against ! It was great to meet so many artists and creators,and Mr Burdis ! Was quite hectic at times,I had to crew for the Star Wars characters in the morning and then changed into my Judge for the afternoon...still had time to buy a couple of pages of artwork and the mini series of Rok of the Reds from Mr Wagner,who was a gent !

First time, I didn't see all of the festival (only made it to the 2000AD panels) but I had a great time. As others have said, can't compare it to previous setups but it didn't seem too awkward. Agreed that the 2000AD aisle was a little too narrow compared to the one preceding it, especially when the huge queue for the portfolio competition clogged it up.

Everyone was friendly and helpful and I hope everyone who spent the money to have a table there got a worthwhile return.